


you and me forevermore

by preciousthings



Series: i will hold onto you [2]
Category: Crooked Media RPF
Genre: M/M, alternate POV, developing feelings, marriage pact
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-16
Updated: 2019-02-16
Packaged: 2019-10-23 12:23:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,165
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17683355
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/preciousthings/pseuds/preciousthings
Summary: If that’s the benchmark for love that he’s working with, maybe Tommy’s loved Jon since the second time they met.(or: a different point of view.)





	you and me forevermore

**Author's Note:**

> I LITERALLY CAN NOT STRESS ENOUGH HOW FICTIONAL THIS IS. super fictional. the most fictional. respect the fourth wall, keep it secret, keep it safe.
> 
> thank you to lotts, tasha, and ellie who read this in various states of unfinished, and to grace for always answering my dumb texts about this story <3 
> 
> this story is a slice of [you and me from the night before](https://archiveofourown.org/works/17216399) in tommy's pov! i thought i was done with this universe, but it turns out i had some more story in me to tell.

“I love you. That’s—that’s what Lovett knows that you don’t,” Jon says, and the words hit Tommy _hard_ , in a way he wasn’t expecting at all. He doesn’t—he can’t—Jon _loves_ him and he’s struggling to breathe, a little bit. It never crossed his mind, that _this_ could be an outcome of this conversation, of all the things it could have been, the millions of possibilities—Jon loves him.

“You—how long?” is all Tommy can manage to get out, between his heart racing and his head spinning. He wills himself to calm down, taking a deep breath and squeezing his eyes shut for a second.

Tommy just nods when Jon asks, “How long has he known? Or how long in general?” and the ringing in Tommy’s ears is too loud, he can’t pay attention or process this, until Jon is saying “—as for how long in general, uh, ten years, give or take?”

“Ten years—jesus, Jon.”

He listens as Jon explains it all, about New Year’s ten years ago, what had happened between them and how he already _knew_ back then how he felt about Tommy, and Tommy just—he had no fucking idea. For ten years, Jon’s felt this way and Tommy’s been completely in the dark. They both dated other people since that New Year’s, and they hadn’t done _anything_ together again until that night a few weeks ago.

“I wouldn’t have hurt you,” Tommy says immediately after Jon’s done, surprising himself a little bit. It feels more like a last ditch effort to make something stick than anything else, because he has no fucking clue what he actually wants as an outcome of this; his thoughts are too scattered to even begin picking up the pieces of this revelation right now.

“You know that now, yeah, but maybe you didn’t ten years ago. Even if you did, maybe it wouldn’t have even worked out. There was too much to risk.”

“And now is different, somehow?” Tommy asks.

All of Jon’s hypotheticals are somehow making it harder for Tommy to deal with any of this. Maybe they’re in a better place to do this now. Maybe ten years is all they needed to for it to work. Jon _held out_ for this, and Tommy can’t even string together enough words to give Jon an answer he deserves to hear.

“That’s a lot of maybes,” he settles on.

“Or maybe we just call it a draw. We end the pact, go back to the way things were a few months ago, I try to move on,” Jon says, and Tommy doesn’t know why it’s the last thing he wants to hear right now, doesn’t know why that option, which makes the most sense right now given how uncertain he feels, sounds like the absolute worst case scenario.

“No,” he says, way too quickly. “That’s not—I don’t want that.”

“Okay. What do you want then?” Jon asks, kind of soft and kind and not at all in line with how Tommy assumes he must actually be feeling right now, but Jon doesn’t yell, Tommy knows this. Jon gets angry, sure, but he’ll never raise his voice. “This can’t just be something I decide on my own.”

And Tommy doesn’t fucking deserve this, is the thing. He doesn’t deserve Jon’s patience or kindness in a conversation like this, where the stakes are Jon’s fucking _heart_. Jon’s been patient for ten years, it seems, and still, in the least productive conversation they’ve ever had, he isn’t losing his cool and that’s more than Tommy would have expected from him. He’s giving Tommy a say in this, but there has to be a breaking point, right? Tommy doesn’t know what Jon’s is; he has to be careful with everything he’s just been given.

“I want time,” Tommy says. It’s the only thing that makes sense at this point. “And space. Just for a little while. I have a lot to wrap my head around right now.”

“Take all the time you need,” Jon says, infuriatingly earnest.

Tommy stands up. He needs to leave the studio, needs to do something to steer his mind off of dwelling on all of this. “I’m gonna, uh, go work on some sponsor stuff.”

“See ya,” Jon says, looking down at the desk.

Tommy’s halfway to the door when he turns around. “Thanks for being so honest,” he says, and he really means it. He turns back around after Jon smiles at him, tight and forced, so he doesn’t have to respond anymore.

Space and time is going to be hard. Really fucking hard, Tommy thinks, because he can’t remember the last time he went more than a day without talking to Jon.

He tells himself that it’s for the best, but he’s not really convinced of that yet.

 

 

“Everything okay?” Lovett asks when Tommy sits back down at his desk. “You look, like, kind of sick. Where’s Jon?”

“He’s still in the studio,” Tommy says, a little dazed. “We talked. You should talk to him.”

“Are _you_ okay, Tommy?” Lovett says. “I’ll talk to him in a little while, but right now, you look terrible.”

“I’m fine.”

“You’re a worse liar than Favreau,” Lovett says. “Your face is doing a thing.”

Tommy doesn’t want to have this conversation right now,  but Lovett is nothing if not insistent. He’s also one of Tommy’s best friends and one of the easiest people to talk to, but Tommy is still trying to wrap his head around what the fuck just happened.

“He told me he loves me!” Tommy snaps. “You still probably know more than I do. I’m taking Lucca for a walk. I’ll be back soon.”

He knows that it’s kind of a cop out to avoid this conversation, but he picks up Lucca’s leash anyway and goes to find her in her favorite spot in the office, perched one of the couches near the big windows. His hands aren’t shaking anymore, which is a victory, all things considered. 

 

 

Lovett is at his desk and Jon still isn’t in their office when Tommy gets back.

“Sorry about earlier,” he says, bending down to unclip Lucca’s leash. She runs off immediately to the dog bed on the far side of their office. Lovett looks up from his laptop and pulls his earbuds out.

“It’s okay,” Lovett says. “As long as you’re okay.”

“I’m—processing it all, I guess. Nothing like a love confession ten years in the making to really shift your worldview, huh,” Tommy laughs, and it comes out sounding more bitter than he intends.

"Yeah, well, imagine you're the one who's been having those feelings for ten years,” Lovett says.

“That’s not fair,” Tommy says, a little stunned. “I didn’t _know_.”

“Relax, you look like you want to fight me,” Lovett says. “When Ronan told me he loved me, I walked out of the room, so like, I get it.”

“Our situations could not be more different,” Tommy says, deadpan. “Have you talked to Jon?”

Lovett nods. “I texted him. He said he wanted to be alone so I left it at that. I shouldn’t even be telling you this.”

“Is he still in the studio?”

“Leo is still here, and I’m assuming he wouldn’t leave without his dog, so yes. Do _not_ go in there,” Lovett warns. “You asked for space. Give him the fucking space.”

“I wasn’t going to go in there!”

“Just making sure,” Lovett says.

“He just—deserves to know that my shitty reaction wasn’t a rejection,” Tommy says.

“What was it, then?” Lovett asks.

Tommy doesn’t know how to put words to this stuff. That’s always been more Jon’s thing. It feels a little too much like college, where he spent almost two years grappling with his sexuality and labels before it finally made sense to him that making out with guys at parties was more than just something he did when he was drunk because he wanted it sober too, and he _did_ have feelings for his freshman year roommate. It was one of the more confusing times in his life, and he came out of it more self-assured, okay with every part of him. This is like that, but smaller, but somehow so much bigger; this is—Jon occupies spaces in Tommy’s life that Tommy’s never let anyone occupy before. And now—

“It was exactly what I said, Lovett. I need space because I need to figure out what I want,” he settles on. “I didn’t want to jump into something and have it be wrong.”

“I don’t want to see either of you get hurt,” Lovett says. “I still have to work with both of you and I want both of you to be happy, whether that’s together or not. Don’t fuck this up beyond repair.”

“I’m not going to fuck it up,” Tommy says.

“Spoken like someone who definitely could fuck it up.”

And the thing is—Lovett is right. Now Tommy just has to do everything in his power to prove Lovett wrong.

“There’s a reason I asked for space,” Tommy says, stern. “I’m not going to—he’s still my best friend. That’s not going to change.”

“Okay,” Lovett says, turning back to his laptop. “Good talk.”

Tommy presses a button on his keyboard so his computer wakes up. He actually does have stuff to work on, but nothing he does is enough to take his mind off of everything with Jon.

 

  

The actual weight of the time and space and distance doesn’t hit Tommy until Monday night, almost a week later.

He puts the Patriots game on, almost texts Jon on four separate occasions, and stops himself just short of hitting send every single time. If this were any normal night, he’d ask Jon to come over with Leo, they’d hang out all night, and everything would feel okay. Except it’s not normal; Jon’s not talking to him, and Tommy _asked_ for it. He needs to start fixing it so they can slowly come back to who they were, because Tommy misses Jon more than he thought was possible.  

 

Lovett  
  
**Today** 12:07 AM  
**Tommy:** Tell me it's stupid to make a pro/con list about jon  
  
**Tommy:** Like i've completely lost my mind, right?  
  
**Lovett:** it's pretty stupid...  
  
**Lovett:** but if it works it works?  
  
**Lovett:** and good luck finding a single flaw

 

Tommy switches over to the notes app and opens up a new note.

**PROS ABOUT JON**

**\- Funny** **  
****\- Laughs at my bad jokes** **  
****\- Cute** **  
****\- Related: nice smile** **  
****\- My dog likes him** **  
****\- He likes my dog** **  
****\- Knows everything about me (even bad stuff)** **  
****\- Good kisser** **  
****\- Really smart** **  
** **\- Always sees the best in people**

He starts another list under that one: **CONS ABOUT JON** , but it’s not coming easily to him the way the pros had.  There’s nothing—not a single fucking thing—that’s bad about Jon.

 **\- Infuriatingly handsome** **  
****\- Too fucking nice sometimes** **  
** **\- 😡**

He closes the note, feeling a little satisfied but a lot more confused. Based on the list alone, Jon is clearly boyfriend material. He’s basically the best kind of person, and this should be an easy choice for Tommy, but once he really starts to think about everything, he’s hung up on the _I love you_ of it all.

It’s been ringing in Tommy’s head since the second it left Jon’s mouth a week ago. He’s pretty sure he’ll never forget it, the way Jon had sounded in that moment—earnest in the most Jon way possible, but tired—tired of the situation, maybe, exhausted from years of keeping it in _. I love you. That’s what Lovett knows that you don’t_. And for ten years, too! Ten years of birthdays, parties, almost-weddings, spending time with each other’s families, the two of them being _something_ until they weren’t anymore, hopping from job to job together, from Chicago to the White House to the west coast, Tommy following Jon to LA eventually, starting two companies together without so much as a second thought. To think now that through all of that, Jon loved him.

Jon has seen Tommy at his best and his worst. He’s stuck around through more shit than Tommy would expect any friend to. He was there on one of the best days of Tommy’s life, in Grant Park on Election Day in 2008, and he was there after every one of Tommy’s bad days in the White House when he spent long, _long_ days in the Sit Room and his head felt like it might burst with the terrible classified secrets he knew.

Jon loved him. Jon _loves_ him.

And Tommy thinks that maybe—maybe a lot of things about their past make more sense with the context he has now. Jon loves him, and he might—no, he probably does—love Jon.

Realizing he loves Jon should probably feel bigger than this. Love _is_ a big thing, and loving his best friend the way Tommy does and not recognizing that feeling as love for as long as he might have should be earth-shattering, world changing kind of stuff. Instead, it just feels like another fact about himself falling into place, another thing about him that just feels right next to everything else: Tommy Vietor, 39 years old, former Presidential spokesman, current political podcaster, bisexual, in love with Jon Favreau.

So that’s sorted, then. Jon is practically perfect, Tommy loves him, and the more he thinks about it, the more it seems like maybe he never stood a chance at all.

 

  

Tommy’s sure he looks awful when he gets to work the next morning, having tossed and turned all night trying to fall asleep to no avail. He’s not sure how he’s functioning enough to drive to work, and he knows that once he gets to work, he’ll be essentially useless.

“You look terrible,” Lovett says when he walks into their office.

Tommy ignores the insult. "How did you know you loved Ronan?"

In a way, it’s like he’s looking for someone else to help him confirm what he already knows.

“That is a _loaded_ question and it’s not even ten a.m., Tommy.”

“Lovett, _please_.”

“I don’t really know,” Lovett says, shrugging. “There’s never, like, one thing. He said it first, but I already knew when he did, even though I did walk out of the room the first time.”

“So you just _knew_?” Tommy asks.

“I mean—he knows my Chipotle order and how I like my coffee without having to ask. Somehow he became the first person I wanted to call when anything happened no matter if it was good or bad. It was never boring with him, even if he wasn’t around, and then I realized that my life with him in it was like, exponentially better than my life without him in it,” Lovett says. “Why am I suddenly Crooked Media's relationship expert? Dan is married, you know. He has a kid. You could argue he’s even _better_ at relationships than I am.”

“You’ve been dating the same person for eight years,” Tommy says, slightly incredulously. “That’s not a small thing, especially with all the long distance you guys have done.”

“Yeah, but,” Lovett shrugs, for lack of anything else to say.

“But nothing, right? You love him and he makes you happy,” Tommy says. “Doesn’t have to be anything more than that.”

Lovett nods, agreeing, and the look on his face, smiling his real smile, is one that Tommy and Jon have come to know as his Ronan Look throughout the years.

Tommy is still thinking about Lovett saying _my life with him in it was exponentially better than my life without him in it_ once Lovett has turned back to his laptop, and if that’s the benchmark for love that he’s working with, maybe Tommy’s loved Jon since the second time they met. Jon is a lot of that for Tommy; he’s always the first person Tommy wants to go to, he knows his coffee order and what foods Tommy will always ask to remove from a meal. Sometimes it’s like they can read each other’s minds, but it’s always been like this and Tommy didn’t recognize it as what it probably is.

“I’m in love with Jon, aren’t I?” Tommy asks, pauses, and then says, “Don’t answer that. It was rhetorical.”

“I’m going to directly ignore that and answer you anyway. Yes, you’re in love with Jon. I’m glad you caught on. How’d that pros and cons list work out for you?”

“How do you think,” Tommy deadpans. He pulls his phone out of his pocket and unlocks it. “There are at least ten pros, but the only cons I came up with are actually pros, and then some frustrated emojis.”

“Lemme see,” Lovett says, so Tommy takes a screenshot and texts to him. He’s definitely going to come to regret this when Lovett never deletes the screenshot and it eventually makes its way to Jon, but right now he’s too tired to care. He can tell when Lovett opens the text because he’s quiet for a second before he starts laughing hysterically.

“It’s not funny,” Tommy mumbles.

“‘Infuriatingly handsome’ and ‘too fucking nice sometimes’ are the nicest mean things anyone’s ever said about Favreau,” Lovett says, between laughs. “You’re, like, the exact same shade of red as that emoji right now.”

Tommy rolls his eyes; he already knows that he blushes easily, and he knows how red he must be right now because his face feels hot. It’s all a little embarrassing, but he did this to himself. “Fuck off,” he mutters, no real heat behind it.

“I told you he doesn’t have flaws.”

“He doesn’t,” Tommy says. “And every single one of my problems seems to stem from that right now.”

“Just make a move,” Lovett says. “You literally have nothing to lose.”

“I have a lot to lose. Basically my entire social life, our _company,_ like, imagine how bad the pods will be if Jon and I have a falling out over this. He’s the best friend I’ve ever had. That’s not something I _want_ to lose, and—”

“You’re overthinking it, Tommy,” Lovett says. “Jon’s already done the hardest part of this. He told you that he loves you. You _know_ that. And you know how you feel about him, now.”

“I just don’t want to fuck it up,” Tommy admits, quietly. “It’s too important for that to happen.”

“I think that he probably feels the same way,” Lovett says. “Show him that you’re serious about being with him?”  

Tommy nods, and then sits with that for a second. That’s—he could do that, probably. He’s going back to the east coast for a few days, but when he gets back, it’s—possible.

“Earth to Tommy,” Lovett continues, waving a hand in front of Tommy’s face.

“Sorry,” Tommy blinks. “I’m gonna do that. I want this to happen, so.”

“Good,” Lovett nods. “You both deserve it.”

“Thanks,” Tommy says.

“I’m gonna talk to Jon now,” Lovett says, standing up. Tommy’s eyes go wide and he shakes his head, about to say something when Lovett cuts him off. “Relax, I’m not some kind of monster that would tell him everything you just told me. He’s in the studio because he came in and didn’t want to interrupt us.”

Tommy nods and turns back to his computer. Jon comes back into the office after lunch, and he still doesn’t really acknowledge Tommy’s presence unless it’s necessary.

Christmas comes and goes. Tommy spends a lot of his time at home figuring out _how_ he can prove to Jon that he’s serious about everything, and above all of that, prove to himself that he can be a good boyfriend to Jon, because Jon deserves that.

It’s been a long time since Tommy’s been someone’s boyfriend, an even longer time since he was someone’s _serious_ boyfriend. And this isn’t just someone, it’s Jon.

Jon, who deserves a lot, who deserves the _world_ that Tommy doesn’t know if he can give him after everything that’s happened between them. Jon deserves someone who loves him, and Tommy is still unsure about a lot of things, but he loves Jon. He’s sure of that much.

 

  

Tommy knows Jon’s coffee order, among a lot of other little things about Jon that Tommy’s been collecting over the years. It’s not a lot, but it’s something. He goes through the Dunkin drive through and orders for himself and Jon. It’s barely even a gesture, but it’s a start.

They’re at half-staff through New Year’s and Tommy is the first one in the office, so he puts the coffee on Jon’s desk on the way to his own, and gets to work on an outline for recording later. Jon’s pretty off when he gets into the office, just—Tommy’s been around Jon on enough days to be able to tell which ones are good and which ones are bad. This one’s probably kind of in between. Not great, but not completely awful. A completely average day with not much productivity.

Jon’s not really looking at him, but he’s drinking the coffee. Tommy looks over sometimes though, and every time, he swears Jon is turning his head back, like maybe he had been looking at some point. Tommy has a job to do, they both do, and Tommy’s feelings can’t be getting in the way right now. He goes back to the outline, still open on his computer screen, because someone has to.

“Accept my airdrop,” Tommy says, an hour later, seconds after he sends the completed outline over to Jon.

“Me?” Jon asks.

“Who else would I be talking to?” Tommy asks, and he hates how, deep down, it feels like something is broken. Something in the dynamic he and Jon have, or _had_ , isn’t working the way it used to, when they could understand things the other was saying without having to use so many words. It’s only been a _week_. “I finished an outline for today’s pod. There are just a few blanks that you could fill in better than I could.”

The screen changes from ‘sending’ to ‘done’ and it’s quiet for a minute while Jon reads through the outline. Tommy scrolls through it again to make sure nothing is missing, a little self conscious about it now that it’s out of his hands.  

“Thanks. This is actually more helpful than you know.”

“It’s the least I could do,” Tommy shrugs.

He wants to say that he’d do the same for Lovett, because he _would_ , but he wouldn’t do it for Lovett because he loves him, and that’s the difference. He doesn’t say that.

“Are we, um,” Jon says, but then he pauses. “We’re not—am I reading this wrong? Do you still want space or has there been enough space?” Jon finishes carefully.

“I think I still need some time, but not talking to you fucking sucks, man.”

“We can adjust?” Jon suggests. “Blend you needing time with just being ourselves again.”

“Adjust, yeah,” Tommy says. It’s a good suggestion, really, it’ll make proving to himself that he _could_ be Jon’s boyfriend easier. And honestly, Tommy just fucking missed him. “I’m sorry about, like, how long it’s taken, but I think i just—”

“Need more time, I get it,” Jon says, sincere. “Seriously, dude, take your time. It’s not like I’m going anywhere.”

“Thank you,” Tommy says.

He’s hanging onto _it’s not like I’m going anywhere_ like it’s a fucking lifeline. Jon doesn’t know it, but it’s exactly what Tommy needed to hear right now.

 

 

The rest of the week is a lot of the same. Tommy keeps doing nice things for Jon, small gestures that definitely should mean something in the grand scheme of things, and he’s convinced now more than he was at the beginning of the week that he could be a good boyfriend to Jon. Jon has still been pretty distant, even after the agreement to adjust the terms of the time and space, but Tommy doesn’t really blame him. They’re still in this limbo, and until Tommy decides to do something about it, they’ll probably stay there unless the breaking point comes first.  

Tommy works from home most of the day on Friday, his last day of work before New Year’s Eve, and in the time he was in the office, Jon had all but shut him out completely on a self-imposed writing deadline that, from what Tommy could tell, wasn’t going that well.

Tommy is about to text Jon, a perfunctory message asking how the article is going, when his phone vibrates with a text from Lovett.

 

Lovett  
  
**Today** 4:19 PM  
**Lovett:** favs is getting mixed signals from you  
  
**Lovett:** when i said show him that you're serious about dating him i didn't mean do some random shit but ignore him otherwise...  
  
**Tommy:** Has he been talking to you about it?  
  
**Lovett:** yeah  
  
**Lovett:** this might be something you want to talk to him about like... soon  
  
**Tommy:** I'm gonna fix it

 

“Shit,” Tommy says out loud, mostly unintentional.

He sends Jon a text asking if he wants to get dinner in a little while. It’ll be a date, Tommy decides. He’ll ask Jon out tonight, and he’ll end the stalemate, and hopefully he’ll have a boyfriend when all is said and done. Hopefully _Jon_ will be his boyfriend when all is said and done.

29 year-old Tommy would be so damn confused if he could see himself now, but maybe knowing all of this back then would’ve saved him a lot of heartache. It would’ve saved them both a lot of heartache.

Twenty minutes later, Tommy sends Jon another text, strictly about dinner with no mention of a date, and both go unanswered. He waits an hour for a response before he decides to pick up takeout for the both of them and swing by the office to see if Jon’s still there, remembering the writing blitz and how Jon tends to get when he’s writing like that.

His suspicion is confirmed when he sees Jon’s car still where it was parked this morning. It’s the only car left that Tommy recognizes, and when he gets upstairs, the office is mostly dark, save for the light from Jon’s computer screen illuminating him. Tommy almost feels bad that the motion-sensor picked him up and turned on some of the lights, because Jon jumps in his seat, a little surprised.

“You weren’t answering texts,” Tommy says, before Jon can get a word in.

“My phone is on Lovett’s desk. I’ve been writing.”

“I figured,” Tommy says. He walks across the office to put the bag with Jon’s food on the corner of his desk, the only part not covered in papers or expensive electronics. “There’s fried dumplings and chicken and broccoli in there.”

Jon smiles, opening the bag and taking a container out. “You didn’t have to get me dinner,” he says.

“I know how you get when you’re writing,” Tommy shrugs. “It’s not a big deal.”

It could have been a bigger deal, but as soon as Tommy saw Jon sitting in the dark, shoulders tense and eyes looking so, so tired, he decided against saying anything more. The last thing Jon needs right now is Tommy showing up with a love confession ten years too late. He’ll shelve it for now, come up with a new plan when he gets home, but the fact that he got this close tonight—it’s enough for right now.

“Well, thank you,” Jon says before he takes a bite out of a dumpling. “I really appreciate this.”

“Mind if I stay for a little while?” Tommy asks. “If you’d rather just go back into a writing lockdown, I get it.”

“I’m almost done,” Jon says. “Sit down and eat. Your food will be cold by the time you get home.”

Tommy sits down at his desk and smiles at Jon, mostly out of relief that Jon didn’t outright kick him out. They don’t really say much, but for the first time since Jon put everything on the line, it doesn’t feel stilted.

Tommy should feel disappointed that he didn’t get a chance to have that conversation with Jon, but instead, he feels lighter than he has in weeks. He feels ready.

 

  

Tommy suggests lunch on New Year’s Eve, and Jon agrees. They take the dogs to the beach first.

“Getting to spend New Year’s on the beach is a lot nicer than having to deal with snow,” Jon says as they walk along the sand. “I never thought I’d say that.”

“Coastal elite,” Tommy jokes, knocking elbows with Jon. “Spends a few winters in Hollywood and forgets all about his east coast roots.”

Jon bumps his shoulder into Tommy’s. “C’mon, you have to admit that this is a lot better than having to shovel snow or be cautious of ice whenever you walk anywhere.”

“I thought I’d miss it more, honestly,” Tommy says.

“It’s nice here,” Jon says, looking at Tommy and smiling. Tommy almost reaches for Jon’s hand and decides against it at the last minute, so his hand just awkwardly brushes against Jon’s and Tommy plays it off like it was an accident.

It’s not the right place to do this for the first time, especially because Tommy wants to do it right. They go to a deli near Jon’s house for lunch, and Tommy insists on paying, even though he knows that Jon’s going to insist on paying back. It’s just—kind of a first date. At least that’s what Tommy hopes it’ll end up being. He’ll bring it up now that they’re back in Jon’s backyard, but there’s a part of him so concerned with doing it right that he’s worried he’ll freeze up and he won’t say anything at all.

Tommy finishes his beer quickly, nerves and all that, so he dog-ears his book and stands up. “Want another?” he asks, motioning toward Jon’s empty bottle on the table.

“Just water?” Jon says. Tommy nods, picking up both of the empties and going inside. He recycles the bottles and takes a second to himself, pulling his phone out of his pocket. Just as he’d suspected he would, Jon _did_ pay him back for lunch.

He opens up the app and considers for a second, but he knows what he has to do. It’s not going to be perfect—nothing about the last ten years have been, but having Jon around has always made things a hell of a lot better than they could have been if he weren’t around. There’s no right way, or perfect way, but Jon _needs_ to know. Tommy sees a lot of days like this in his future—perfect days, relaxing days, _being_ with Jon.

Tommy’s hands are shaking a little and he tries to ignore it as he sends the money for lunch back to Jon with a simple message.

_'it was a date'_

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading! <3
> 
> i'm over on tumblr @ofspringreturning and twitter @matbarzaI (the L is a capital i!)


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